The winners of the 2007 Game Critics Awards will be announced this week, but for now, the nominees are all savoring their well-deserved recognition—that is, when they're not jamming to finish their games. We reached out to the makers of a couple of our pre-E3 candidates for Best of Show-Harmonix and Infinity Ward-to get their reactions to the nominations they received. Here's what they told us:

Grant Collier, president and studio head of Infinity Ward

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 

Four nominations: Best of Show, Best Console Game, Best PC Game, Best Action Game

Considering the hundreds of exciting, high-caliber titles at E3 this year, all of us here at Infinity Ward are extremely thrilled to receive so many E3 nominations for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. We've worked really hard to make this the best title we've ever created, and to be considered in four of the coveted Game Critics Awards categories speaks to the game's strength and showing on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. We have incredible respect and are good friends with the development teams who are also up for consideration, and it gives us great honor to be within such top-tier company.

Alex Rigopoulos, CEO, president and co-founder of Harmonix

Rock Band 

Five nominations: Best of Show, Best Console Game, Best Original Game, Best Hardware, Best Social/Casual/Puzzle Game

The team at Harmonix has been pouring its sweat and blood into Rock Band for a very long time, so obviously we're all thrilled with this recognition. The reception that the game received at E3 speaks to rock music's universal appeal and its power to sway people's emotions. We can't wait to finish the game and release it to the world.

We also slipped in another question for Rigopoulos: how did he feel about Rock Band being nominated for Best Original Game after Activision, publisher of the Harmonix-developed Guitar Hero franchise, called its new rival Rock Band an imitator during a May conference call? His reply: "Harmonix's goal with Rock Band has been to elevate music gaming to a fundamentally new level, and so we're delighted that the E3 judges responded so favorably to the new direction we've taken."

The judges ballots were turned in on Wednesday; now we, like you and the nominated developers await the results. Previous Best of Show winners include Wii (2006), Spore (2005), PSP (2004), Half-Life 2 (2003), Doom III (2002) and Gamecube (2001), so whoever prevails this year will be in very good company. We wish all of the nominees the best; come back this week for the results.